Thursday, January 5, 2012

Seating Manners

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I have never be appointed or accused of being part of the manners police. When it comes to social manners I usually am at a loss for what is right or wrong. However, the manners I do understand and follow I expect everyone else to follow with the same vigor I do.

In my everyday life the manners I follow use this logic, "What do I need to do to stay invisible?" I don't think I've ever done something outright rude, but in certain situations, like dinner with a group, I can be a bit aloof.

So, as I said, all that I do is to stay invisible. I have a critical rule that I will explain, but first let me set the scene. As with yesterday's post this story is in Fort Wayne, Indiana and the Rumble race. The race itself is an indoor event and is great bang for the buck with racing starting at 11AM and running all the way to about 11PM. To my mom's dismay, I want to get there as early as possible to get the seats on the top row. This photo was taken early on the first day with a skeleton audience.

Over the course of the day the audience does file in, but an aggravating thing happened to me that I could not understand. To describe this I go back to using MS Paint:

The black X's represent empty seats and my mom and I are the light blue X's. I love my space and this diagram is amazing. However, shortly after my photo was taken, the seating chart looked like this:

Four people came up and ended up sitting directly in front of my mom and I. There was an empty section to the left and an empty section to the right of my diagram as well as empty rows in front as well as many seats in the same row to the right that did not involve sitting directly in front of us. I like my space but don't get me wrong as eventually the only seats left will be the one's right around me, but when all the real estate is open isn't rude to sit right in front of people?

This is one of my rules and I am passionate about it; when seating, if it can be avoided, one should NEVER sit directly in front of a person when it is general admission.

The genesis of this rule in my life is that should I be the one sitting in front of a person I deeply fear that the people behind will yell at me or maybe put bubblegum in my hair. The bottomline is that I can't handle that type of social situation so I try to stay invisible and avoid it all costs.

As I said starting this, when I believe in a rule I expect all others to adhere to it just the way I do. I think my anger was evident on my face as my mom told me to, "calm down" but I was just at a loss as to how others can have a complete disregard to manner... and with that point right there this is one of the finer point of being on the spectrum. What I mean by that is that there is no gray area. If I don't understand the logic of a social rule or am fully ignorant of it, I may not follow it. However, if I understand it and live by it then I will be deeply angry when some yahoos sit right in front of me. Of course, I've never been a candidate for being on the manners police and I'll probably go another 500 or so blog posts until I'm on the right side of manner law, but for that one moment in Fort Wayne I wanted to get on my manners high horse and give those four people a piece of my mind, but had I done that I would have become visible and above all else staying invisible is the name of the game.

In that situation you described, your mom is right! If the situations you fear are happening, then be assertive and say how you feel. Otherwise, just relax and have a good time. Yes, it maybe hard to open up for you... but this is another example of why having adequate community integration skills is important for people with autism!

Who I Am

Hello, my name is Aaron Likens and thanks for visiting my blog. I am the Autism Ambassador for Easter Seals Midwest and also the author of the book "Finding Kansas. My passion in life is to raise the awareness and understanding of the autism spectrum through this blog as well as the many presentations I give. For myself, as much as it is a passion, it is personal because I was given the diagnosis of Asperger's when I was 20. Back then there wasn't much info and I fell into a pit of despair. I stayed there for 15 months but then I eventually discovered myself through writing and now here I am and here you are on my blog. There are well over 1,000 posts on this blog as I started blogging in March of 2010. So whether you're reading today's blog, or are skimming through stories of the past, I hope that your time here gives you a better glimps of what living life on the autism spectrum, or, "other side of the wall" is like. If you do like what you see please follow me on Facebook as that's where I share when I've written a new blog as well as announcing where I will be presenting. Please note that the opinions expressed on this blog are mine and may not be reflective of Easter Seals Midwest.

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Finding Kansas Revisited

To mark 10 years since I started writing my book I did a blog series with my thoughts from today on what I wrote then. This was the first time I ever read anything I had ever written.

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I ran a sunglasses experiment to judge why eye contact is so difficult. I wore them for about 15 days, then I switched back to my normal glasses to see how big of a difference there was. By clicking my picture you can be taken to the page that has the complete experiement all in one place.

About Me

I am the Autism Ambassador for Easter Seals Midwest and also the author of Finding Kansas: Living and Decoding Asperger's Syndrome. My passion in life is raising awareness of Autism Spectrum Disorders and to help the world understand how the mind of a person on the spectrum works. I can do this because I am on the spectrum (Asperger's).
I was diagnosed at the age of 20 and after the diagnosis a lot of my quirks made sense. I didn't understand who I was though and went into a deep depression. Through this depression though I became very keen on my inner self and I started to write. I wrote and I wrote and before I knew it I wrote a book.
5 years later I am, among other things, giving presentations to police, teachers, and parents and am now starting my quest on making the best blog possible!
The views on this blog are mine and may not be reflective of Touch Point Autism Services.
If you have any questions, or comments, or have an article idea please email me at aaron.likens@yahoo.com.